ABSTRACT
Even if nudity and representations of sexual acts have nowadays become more mainstream or less shocking, queer desires on stage had always displayed the cultural power of presence in states of precarity and hedonistic corporeality. This chapter discusses landmark works of heightened intimacy in their historical context, thereby examining their cultural efficacy in dismantling heteronormative expectations and norms. A short prehistory of queer representations will be included as an introduction which will illustrate how intimate presences moved from the closet to unapologetic queer visibility. In any case, queer presences on stage belong to a tradition of representations that risked the accusation of indecency and were often called to order by acts of (homophobic) policing and prosecution, similar to the policing of female sexuality on stage. The plays discussed include Howard Brenton’s The Romans in Britain (1980), Kevin Elyot’s Coming Clean (1982), Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart (1985), Mark Ravenhill’s Shopping and Fucking (1996), Robert Schrock’s Naked Boys Singing! (1999), Joe DiPietro’s Fucking Men (2009), Nicholas de Jongh’s Plague over England (2008), Sarah Waters and Laura Wade’s Tipping the Velvet (2015) and David Leddick and Andrew Sargent’s Rent Boy: The Musical (2015).
